The reverse logistics of used and contaminated lubricating oil (OLUC), which comprises the waste collection and re-refining chain for the production of base oils, was presented as a success story of circular economy, in Brazil-Glasgow pavilion at COP26.
With a total of approximately 468 million liters of OLUC collected and correctly disposed in 2020, Brazil is a reference for the sector. From this re-refined amount, approximately 303 million liters of base oils were produced, which guarantees foreign exchange savings for the country in the order of US$ 300 million per year.
The Brazilian circular economy case was presented at COP26 by the vice-president of the Environmental Association for OLUC Management (AMBIOLUC) and Institutional Relations and Sustainability manager at Lwart Soluções Ambientais, Aylla Kipper (photo), who highlighted the sector’s data and how the reverse logistics of the lubricating oil is carried out. “The lubricating oil is composed of a large portion of mineral oil, which receives additives to improve its performance. This mineral oil present in its composition does not degrade during use in machines and engines. And that is why it is possible, through the re-refining process, separating the mineral oil contained in the used lubricating oil from other components, such as water, degraded additives and other types of oil and fuels, recovering it countless times,” she explains.
The efficiency of the OLUC re-refining process is capable of producing 70% base oils from what has been collected, and 13% of the resulting waste, is composed of asphalt sludge, used as a raw material for waterproofing products, such as asphalt blanket, for example. 10% of the composition is water, which is treated and reused. Finally, the remaining 7% of the process refers to light fractions, which can serve as auxiliary fuels in factories.
Aylla also highlighted that OLUC’s example of reverse logistics is a pioneer in Brazil. “The sector has been developing since the 70s in the country. Today we are a consolidated world reference in the re-refining and production of high-performance base oils, we operate in 95% of the national territory, collecting in 4,250 municipalities with 59 storage bases for OLUC and 12 re-refineries”, she comments.
Brazil has a re-refining plant at the forefront of technology.
The city of Lençois Paulista is home to one of the most modern plants in the world for re-refining used lubricating oil. It belongs to the Brazilian Lwart Soluções Ambientais, leader in the sector and the first re-refinery in Latin America to produce high-performance Group II base oils.
The state-of-the-art technological set present at Lwart’s plant allows the re-refining to take advantage of practically 100% of the used lubricating oil that enters the industrial process. In addition to extracting mineral base oil, the process treats the water present in the waste and also produces by-products, such as heat generating fuel for the plant itself and an asphalt compound, raw material for the production of asphalt blankets used in waterproofing of civil constructions. It is an eco-efficient process in which nothing is lost, all raw material is used in some way.
